'Borderline' has been misdiagnosed
HANDOUT
The demented grin is hereditary, obviously. So maybe writer/first-time director Jimmy Warden (“Cocaine Bear”) thought that Ray Nicholson (“I Love You Forever”), echoing his father Jack’s unmistakable delighted mania, would carry the weight that the filmmaker couldn’t.
Alas. “Borderline” struggles to decide what it’s about, treading water until there has been no character development or lessons or much of anything.
Because we really needed another movie about beloved artists and over-the-top fans (“The Ballad of Wallis Island,” “Opus”), the story involves Paul (Nicholson) escaping from an institution and plotting his very, very forced marriage to pop star Sofia (Samara Weaving). It’s obvious that Warden loved the idea and struggled to take it anywhere; much of “Borderline” is spent with side characters (including Eric Dane as Sofia’s bodyguard, Patrick Cox as Paul’s gigantic, violent friend and Alba Baptista as a young woman who breaks out with Paul) and a strange disinterest in developing Sofia as a person or musician.
That leaves Weaving with little to do (her scenes with her basketball player boyfriend, played by Jimmie Fails, are nice but generic), and Warden doing little to explain why the movie is set in the ‘90s. This is not a commentary on obsessive fandom or celebrity culture or the response to trauma or the loneliness of stardom. It’s more of an exercise in “How many times can people survive things that should have killed them?” which removes the little bit of interest or suspense that might have been generated. Prepare to suspend much disbelief as impossible plans are executed flawlessly; don’t prepare to understand how threats are constantly minimized for a moment but treated by the characters like the fight is over.
Warden does show promise from a visual standpoint, and there’s a cheeky laugh or two. But like Paul, “Borderline” (which sometimes makes the mildly comparable “Trap” look better) is too amused with itself and almost entirely wrong about what’s being accomplished.
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